 This salad is a wonderful way to use up a late summer glut of tomatoes. Here I call for one of my favorite varieties, the Early Girl. Early girls have thicker skins and are often dry farmed in Northern California. This results in wedges that are less likely to fall apart in salads and a more concentrated tomato flavor that will uplift any recipe.
This dish should really only be made in the summer and early fall when the tomatoes are in season and taste as tomatoes should: tangy, sweet and just a hint of richness. It’s also a terrific way of using up bread that has been lingering in your pantry too long and has gone stale. If you don’t have stale bread simply toast the bread cubes in the oven until they crisp up.
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 Calabrian chile paste has become one of the ingredients du jour at pizzerias where pizza is taken very seriously. Hailing from the Calabria region of Italy, this pepper adds a surprising amount of heat to dishes so take note if you are not wildly fond of spicy meals. There is both a sweet and a spicy version of Calabrian pepper, which I learned the hard way. Let’s just say that not paying attention to what I was grabbing out of the pantry led to a soup that was deemed too spicy by someone who won’t travel without hot sauce or red pepper flakes in her bag.
Cooking the chickpeas with a chile de arbol infuses a subtle heat into the beans, which is lovely but the dish will still work without it. By roasting the vegetables we develop the natural sweetness in the fennel and the onion while increasing the umami flavor in the mushrooms. Both of these tastes provide a wonderful base for the Calabrian chile to really shine.  When the Alzheimer’s Association reached out to me asking to teach a virtual cooking class for Brain Health month in June 2020, I jumped at the opportunity. Many of the foods and dishes that find their way onto my menus and into my mouth are nutrient dense and provide a strong foundation for good health. However, I wanted to craft something that was specific to supporting the brain. I developed this salad to include two brain all-stars: leafy greens and walnuts.
Time after time, study after study asserts that the daily inclusion of leafy greens is correlated with slower cognitive decline and reduced inflammation. Greens are high in fiber, which prevents sharp increases in blood sugar, something that damages nerve and neuronal cells over time. They boast high levels of a myriad of phytochemicals that can combat oxidative stress, shore up our immune systems and modulate activity of genes involved in metabolism. Another reason to include greens… they taste delicious. I’d like to think that nature shaped walnuts like a brain to signify that this is exactly what they will support. Walnuts are high in omega 3 fatty acids, which support neuronal function and help to maintain the brain cell- membrane integrity. The walnuts are candied ever so slightly in maple syrup to both increase their crunch and to provide flashes of sweetness amidst the slightly bitter greens.  This is a fresh and colorful salad that utilizes the abundant zucchini of summer. The pine nuts add depth while the fresh herbs offer brightness and panache. By salting the zucchini first you are allowing much of the water to be leached out resulting in a texture that is similar to pasta. If you want a more toothsome, crisp bite then skip Step 1 entirely and omit the squeezing. Go easy on the salt initially as some would have been washed away as the zucchini drained.
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